


Just Good Friends

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-11
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-26 02:16:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17737109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Just what went down when Mulder and Scully decided not to give each other presents for Christmas, season 6? A pre-ep for How The Ghosts Stole Christmas.





	Just Good Friends

He’s waiting in the coffee shop with their usual order in a cardboard tray, his cell clutched in the other hand and a paper bag in his mouth. She whips it from him and they sit by the window watching umbrellas battle each other on the street.

“Why all the secrecy, Mulder?”

He called her earlier, asking to meet at seven. No details provided.

“How’s the pastry? You like the almond, right?”

His knee bounces under the table and the sugar crystals run over the surface. “I do,” she says, taking a bite. Flakes of golden pastry fall to the join the sugar and there’s a confectionery dance to the rhythm of his leg. “But why are we here? You didn’t invite me here just to buy me pastries and coffee. That would be, like, a date.” He gulps noticeably. She frowns. “Mulder, do you have a lead?”

“On what?” His voice is unnaturally high but he slinks low to the tabletop, elbows spread and face pushed up so that she can see his plump mouth glisten under the lighting and the shadowed skin around it and his jaw. He looks like a fifties movie star, leather jacket collar turned up, eyes dark with mystery.

She shifts in her seat and sips on her coffee. Maybe this is a date? She leans her hand on her chin so she’s almost level with him. No. Stay on track. “I don’t know, Mulder. An X File? Isn’t that why you wanted to meet?”

He shoots upright again. Hands slapping the table. Sugar flies everywhere. “Is that what you think of me, Scully? That I only want to meet you to discuss cases?”

Shit. Her nose wrinkles as she tries to process his response. He’s jangling with nerves, he’s looking all round, his fingers drum, he’s swallowing more often, and there’s a fine sheen of sweat over his face. “No, Mulder, that’s not what I think, but you are acting strangely.”

“Oh, so now I’m strange?”

She raises her eyebrows so high that the skin on her forehead tightens. “You really want me to answer that?”

“Scully,” he growls and adopts his low stance again, pulling a packet of salt from the cup on the table and playing with it. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

She checks the door, working out the quickest way to exit, should it be necessary to feel the cold damp of the morning air against her skin. He’s going to ask her out. And whatever feelings she’s had over the years, she is not prepared for this. Her intake of breath is ragged and she tries not to look directly at him, but he’s doing that face. That wounded one. He always looks like the loneliest person in the world when he does that face. The most misunderstood. The most sidelined. And yet she’s here with him. They’ve become sidelined together. She feels her insides soften and harden at once. Maybe now is the time. Maybe, just maybe, Fox Mulder has found some courage and so maybe, just maybe, she can find some too. Be adult about their feelings.

“I’ve just called you strange. I’m here at your request. I’m eating a pastry you bought me. I’ve fed your fish.” She wants to say, we nearly kissed in your hallway, but she stops herself. She bends low and whispers. “We’ve seen each other naked.” Then she raises herself up and smiles at him. “I think that means we’re friends.” Just friends. Really good friends.

He nods, oblivious to her mild flirtation. She snuffs out a frustrated sigh through her nostrils as he talks on. “So friends exchange gifts at Christmas, don’t they?”

Outside, a couple walks past, arm-in-arm, faces lit with loving smiles. She sighs. “I guess so, Mulder.”

“So, are we going to?”

The couple stops outside the café and fold into each other’s arms. Rain falls over them and they stay embracing. The woman pulls her head out from his chest and seeks his mouth. Scully licks her lips reflexively. She chances a look at Mulder, who has managed to split the paper on the packet of salt and the crystals have made a pyramid on the table in front of him.

“Scully? Gifts? It’s just that I’ll need to make time to get to the…”

She crumples the paper bag and leaves it on the table next to the mound of salt. “Don’t worry about it, Mulder. Maybe we’re the type of friends who don’t need to exchange gifts.”

The man outside runs his fingers through the woman’s hair and looks at her with the most loving expression.

Mulder stands up and breathes out a long sigh, like he’s relieved. “Well, that’s good then. Plans for tonight, Scully?”

“It’s Christmas Eve, Mulder.”

He pushes his head forward, mouth slightly open. “And?”

She walks to the exit, keen to feel that cold air slap her face, but just as they reach the door, she feels Mulder’s warm arm across the small of her back and when she looks up at him, he’s smiling down at her with an expression, that if she were viewing them from the outside, might suggest they were more than just good friends.


End file.
